Niederhäuser Hermannshöhle, Riesling, Spätlese, 2014
A magnificent nose parades notes of spiced peach, wild strawberry, fresh white peach and vanilla pod. The palate has lots of powerful extract, yet finishes so utterly refined and elegant. This has it all. Long, regal and destined for a long life, firm with slate character yet open and generous with its fruit already. A great marriage of elegance and power.
critic reviews
From an old parcel in the Hermannshöhle whose vines are still single post-trained, this auctioned bottling (representing the contents of a 600-liter Halbstück) delivers a highly aromatic and luscious amalgam of white peach, pink grapefruit and Persian melon not unlike that familiar from its A.P. #12 counterpart. Suggestions of nut pastes complemented by candied citrus rind are also present. But this boasts a yet creamier texture, greater delicacy, and a more complex and mouthwatering mineral savor, allied to raw scallop-like sweetness and salinity.
In 2014 the Donnhoffs bottled two different Spatlese Rieslings from their family cru Hermannshohle. The regular 2014 Riesling Spatlese Niederhauser Hermannshohle shows a clear and aristocratic bouquet of great finesse. On the palate, this wine is so deliciously ripe, piquant, fine and elegant that it is almost mind-blowing. This is great and extremely cool, precise, finesse-full, frisky, filigreed and light-hearted, though still a serious Spatlese with a stimulatingly piquant finish. A great Spatlese -- one of the finest I had in 2015.